The Department of Justice says the former leader of a Missouri-based organization that illegally funneled money to Iraq should have his U.S. citizenship revoked.

The federal agency filed a complaint Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City. It seeks to revoke the naturalization of Mubarak Hamed.

Hamed was executive director of the Islamic American Relief Agency, which posed as a charity to assist famine victims in Africa. The organization collected $1 million to $3 million each year in contributions from 1991 to 2003.

The Justice Department says the group secretly funneled about $1.4 million to Iraq in violation of U.S. economic sanctions. The group dissolved in 2004, after the U.S. government deemed it a terrorist organization.

Hamed is a native of Sudan. He was sentenced in 2012 to almost five years in federal prison.

(AP)